


I Do, I Do, I Do (The Month of Sundays Remix)

by thisbluespirit



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Crack, Drunkenness, F/M, Gen, Humor, Multi-Era, Noodle Incidents, Remix, Self-cest, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-11-02 04:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20617139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: The TARDIS is malfunctioning and now the Doctor can’t seem to avoid getting drunk and marrying her former selves while dressed as Marilyn Monroe.  And that one Hollywood party had seemed like such a good idea at the time…





	I Do, I Do, I Do (The Month of Sundays Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruuger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Old, New, Borrowed Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17312705) by [Ruuger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/pseuds/Ruuger). 

> I think all I can say about this is that I’m sorry (I’m so sorry) but once I read this I was constitutionally incapable of remixing anything else in any other way. I hope you manage to find something to enjoy here – I loved the original! You may find that elements of [Hope is All We Have](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17460689) have snuck in here as well.
> 
> (This is my original assignment, which I defaulted on, but finally completed before reveals & so posted here, just in case of any modly or other confusion.)
> 
> With thanks to Pers for the beta, as ever!

**i.**

“No, no,” said the Doctor. “You’re not the real Marilyn. _That’s_ the real Marilyn.”

Marilyn Monroe, who was pretty sure she was the actual Marilyn Monroe, shrugged and moved on, leaving the drunken idiot with the obviously Fake Marilyn behind.

“Hi,” the Doctor said, adjusting his bow tie. “Marilyn, right? Marilyn Monroe. Amazing! And you know what else is amazing? I’m drunk. I don’t usually get drunk. It’s the biology. Two hearts. Respiratory bypass. Generally superior at dealing with toxins and all that.”

‘Marilyn’ beamed and waved her arms about, causing several dancers to make a wide berth around them. “Snap! I don’t usually get drunk either! Two hearts, like you said.”

“Don’t be silly,” said the Doctor. “Humans don’t have two hearts. You must be very _very_ drunk.”

“I _am_, that bit’s true.”

“And,” the Doctor added, “you know what I haven’t done for ages?”

“What?”

“Got married to a total stranger while blind drunk at a Hollywood party! I mean, they do that kind of thing here, right? It’s traditional! Why not?”

*

The woman with the hair who’d asked Graham to dance and refused to take no for an answer, nodded over at the Doctor, dressed as Marilyn Monroe and about to run out of the building with some gangly guy in a tux. “Better run after your friend, sweetie. I think she’s about to make a big mistake – and trust me, I should know.”

*

“You and I,” said the latest Doctor to the TARDIS quite some time afterwards, giving it her sternest look, despite still being dressed as Marilyn Monroe, “need to have words. And a few tweaks to your inner workings. Look, I know it’s dodgy, meeting yourself – old Blinovitch Limitation Effect and all that – but turns out that making my head go that fuzzy as a precaution has some serious drawbacks. I can’t go round marrying myself every time I run into me, that’d just be confusing. I don’t even want to imagine the sort of paperwork the divorce’d involve.”

She burrowed into the TARDIS, sonic screwdriver in hand. “Aha! That ought to do it. And,” she continued, lifting her head, “it’s a bit narcissistic, which is, frankly, worrying. I thought I’d got over that phase ages ago.”

* * *

**ii.**

“So, er, Doctor,” said Graham, “is this going to happen a lot?”

Ryan pushed the door shut and leant against it, as if to keep the terrible truth out, when it was already inside. “Were you _drunk_ again?”

The Doctor held up a hand and looked at the TARDIS console. It looked innocent and merely dispensed a custard cream, which Ryan picked up. He shrugged, and ate it.

“Yes, well,” said the Doctor, “it seems that when I tried to fix the TARDIS the other day to make sure that this kind of thing never ever happened again, I may actually have done the opposite. The old girl’s playing up for some reason. But, um, well, there’s only so many of me, I suppose, so we’ll have to stop eventually. And on the plus side, the parties have been excellent so far.”

Yasmin wrinkled up her nose. “You don’t think it’s, well, a bit narcissistic? Keeping on marrying yourself every time you get drunk?”

“Yeah,” said the Doctor. “I thought about that, too. It’s not great, I know. But then it’s not my fault I’ve always had charisma and style!”

Ryan choked on the custard cream. “You what?”

“It was,” said the Doctor with a faraway look in her eye, “such a nice cape. And that velvet jacket. Maybe I could get a frilly shirt? I’d like that. What colour d’you reckon?”

Yasmin put a hand to her face.

“Doctor,” said Ryan as kindly as he could, “that really isn’t the issue here.”

*

_Sometime earlier or possibly about the same time in the 1970s or maybe the 1980s, it’s so hard to tell:_

“I may be your commanding officer,” said the Brigadier. “That does not, however, make me qualified to perform a marriage ceremony at the UNIT Christmas Party. You’re thinking of the captain of a ship. And even if I were, I would have serious questions about marrying a drunken couple who’d only met seconds before.”

“If you hadn’t been so unreasonable,” said the Doctor, “I wouldn’t have had to fetch that vicar.” He put his hand to his chin, frowning in thought. “Funny, you know, he almost looked familiar.”

“Doctor,” said the Brigadier as patiently as he could, “go and lie down. You must be completely plastered if you failed to recognise the Master. You know how much he likes impersonating men of the cloth. I’m going to have to have words with Benton about that home made elderberry wine of his.”

The Doctor swayed. “I never get drunk!”

“I see, Doctor,” said the Brigadier, raising one sceptical eyebrow. “In that case, I’ll be expecting a report about this on my desk first thing in the morning. In triplicate.”

* * *

**iii.**

The Doctor hung the epic scarf up on the hat stand, and gave it a fond stroke, as if it was an old friend.

“Doctor!” said Yasmin.

She held up a hand. “Don’t worry. I’m going to fix it. Properly this time. Promise. It’ll be fine! No more marrying myself. Absolutely. Never again! That was absoposilutely the last time.”

Ryan wiped his forehead. “It had better be.”

“But, hey,” said the Doctor, with a sudden grin, “what a honeymoon!”

*

“Romana,” said the Doctor, elsewhere in another TARDIS, someplace, somewhen. He cleared his throat, finding this more awkward than he’d imagined. “Did we, ah, get hitched last night?”

“Well, there were some hitches, I admit, but I thought I handled the situation admirably. Where were you, anyway?”

“What? Where was I? Marrying you! At least, I think I was, it’s all very unclear.”

Romana considered his statement carefully before answering. “If you married someone last night, Doctor, it wasn’t me. I was too busy saving this planet. With one hand tied behind my back, actually, but I don’t like to boast.”

“But she was blonde,” said the Doctor, “and had two hearts and was dressed as Marilyn Monroe. Who else could she have been?”

Romana shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Matter? Matter! Ha! Does it matter, she says!”

“Well, does it?”

“I suppose not,” said the Doctor, deflating. “I mean, does it count if we didn’t even know each other’s names and I thought she was somebody else anyway? . . . And what do you mean, with one hand behind your back? That’s ridiculous!”

“Ridiculous?” said Romana. “You walked out onto a space ship and got married to a Marilyn Monroe lookalike with two hearts. You can’t talk to me about being ridiculous. It _is_ the one thing you’re better at than me, after all.”

* * *

**iv.**

“Look, it was a war,” said the Doctor. “It’s a well-known statistical fact that the number of marriages shoot up in war time. _Carpe diem_ and all that.”

“Fish of the day?” said Graham, and winked at Yasmin.

The Doctor had a distant look in her eye again. “Besides,” she added, more softly, “that me really needed cheering up. I wasn’t myself.”

“Well done, then,” said Ryan. “That makes this one a tiny little bit less incestuous, so that’s something.”

“Exactly!”

* * *

**v.**

“This one wasn’t my fault! When I was that me I kissed practically everyone I met!”

Yasmin sighed. “_And_ married them?”

“Oh, yes. If they’d have me.” She gave a wistful sigh. “I _liked_ being that me. That was before – well, before lots of things. And don’t worry, I guarantee he won’t remember it. I was always forgetting things when I was him. Who I was, the TARDIS, which planet I was on, which planet I’d left my companions on, that kind of thing.” She straightened herself, catching her fam’s shared looks of alarm. “Not that I’d ever do that now! I haven’t left anyone behind since – ooh, well, that time in Glasgow, and, I mean, Clara got home all right. So did Sarah Jane, come to that, even though I don’t think she ever really forgave me. Funny that. I mean, it was Aberdeen, not Mars. I’m pretty sure they had buses. Trains, even.”

Yasmin folded her arms. “Doctor! Never mind Scotland – this has got to stop!”

The Doctor turned her attention back to the console. “Yes. It’s getting past a joke, isn’t it? Some of me’d probably faint away in horror at the idea. And some mes would _definitely_ hit me over the head. Can’t have that. Not great for the timeline, or my noggin.”

“You used to hit people over the head a lot?” Ryan asked.

The Doctor gave a shrug, poking into the TARDIS innards with a determined frown. “Oh, you know how it is when you’re young and going through a rebellious phase.” She pulled back, surveying her handiwork with satisfaction. “Right, that’s done it. I’m absolutely, 100% sure that next time wherever we land, there won’t be a party, there won’t be any other mes, and I won’t be marrying anyone, and nobody will feel compelled to dress up as Marilyn Monroe. I can’t guarantee everyone’ll be sober, though.”

She beamed at them.

Behind her, the TARDIS remained worryingly silent before spitting out another custard cream.

* * *

**vi.**

The Doctor had found that people weren’t really very sympathetic listeners, at least not after the first forty minutes of hearing about his tragic woes, but he never let it worry him too much. The blonde woman sitting next to him at the bar, who incidentally looked very fetching in her Marilyn Monroe outfit, was staring at him, so she counted as an audience, and that was all he needed.

“So, that was Rose,” he said, concluding Part One of his epic tale of Lost Companions. He blinked away a tear.

“Yeah,” said the woman, staring at the drinks behind the bar now. “She was _fantastic_.”

The Doctor heaved a sigh, blowing several paper napkins off the bar and onto the floor. “And then there was Martha. She was great, too. She was really into me, you know, but it didn’t work out.”

“Yeah,” said the blonde woman again. “I know what you mean. And I’ve had a long time to think about that, and I think it was probably the part where I treated her like crap and made her walk all the way around the Earth telling everyone how bloody brilliant I was. Which makes sense. It’s people holding grudges about Aberdeen I don’t get.” She waved a hand and peanuts flew out of a small packet she was holding. “Hey,” she said, “I think I’ve got a peanut gun for a hand!”

The Doctor was in full flow and not about to be stopped by peanuts, not even when one had hit him in the face. “And Donna.” He drew in a breath. “God, Donna was amazing and then I –”

“I’ve just got one question,” said the woman, “will you shut up if I marry you?”

“Probably. I mean, if there’s kissing involved, which there usually is, it gets hard to keep talking, especially if people start doing weird things with their tongues. I’ve tried.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“So,” he said, drawing himself up and considering the new idea. He must be far more drunk than he realised, which was weird because he didn’t usually get drunk, but it seemed like a really good one. Just what he needed. “Right! Let’s go find one of those places where they marry you! A church or a register office. Or a marquee. Or maybe a ship. With a Captain on it. But not the UNIT Christmas party, because the Brigadier doesn’t hold with that kind of thing.”

“Great!” said the woman, grabbing his hand. As they were about to run out of the door, she hesitated. “You know, I’ve got something in my head about objections. Is there some reason we shouldn’t do this?”

“Does bigamy count? Because I might sort of possibly be already married to Elizabeth I.”

The woman thought about that. “Hey, that’s a coincidence – me, too!”

“Tell you what,” said the Doctor, and swayed wildly about, “we just won’t invite her. It’ll be fine!”

* * *

**vii.**

Ace sneaked a look at the note in her pocket, the one the other Professor had given her, the one wearing a different, darker jacket, along with strict instructions not to tell his earlier self about it. Thinking about the moral implications of keeping a secret from the Doctor because he’d told her to in the future was giving her a headache, so she decided it was better just to get on with it.

_Dear Ace_, it read, _I find the hours between 6pm and 12pm on this day are a complete blur for reasons I can’t explain. Come and haul me out from the above address by at least 8pm if I don’t return before then in case of catastrophic universal consequences._

“Catastrophic,” she said under her breath. “Great.” And New New Vegas had seemed like a really fun place up until now.

She made her way to the address, to find a giant casino decked out in Martian Pyramid style with flashing lights and fake Ice Warriors at the door.

“Tacky,” Ace said as she walked in. “Must be the work of an evil mastermind.” Who knew what alien horrors might be lurking within? They probably didn’t even have a penny falls machine.

Asking around after the Professor brought her to an upstairs room where they were apparently about to perform a marriage ceremony, which seemed a bit weird, but Ace shrugged. If there was no world-ending threat, she wouldn’t mind a slice of wedding cake. Once through the door, she stopped in shock. The Professor was the one getting married, and to some blonde woman in a Marilyn Monroe outfit.

“Hey,” she said, waving her arms about and attracting everyone’s attention. “I object!”

The only other guests present all exchanged a glance.

“We already did that,” said the younger woman, giving Ace a sympathetic smile.

The blonde woman frowned. “Spoilsports.” She waved a hand about. “You know, I’m drunk again. There’s something weird about that. And something I’m not supposed to do. What is it I definitely mustn’t do when I get drunk?”

“Marry yourself,” said the older bloke, who had, it seemed, beaten Ace to the wedding cake. “Again.”

The Professor merely had that sad, faraway look in his eye. “A shame,” he sighed. “I hate unrequited love.”

Ace considered her options, and decided there was only one thing for it. “Anyone else fancy blowing something up?”

* * *

**viii.**

“Don’t shout,” said the Doctor. “My head’s still muzzy and this time I did everything I was supposed to do. I put notes in all my pockets _and_ I read them, even though the words kept jumping about. So, I thought the best thing to do was try and sober up, so I made myself a cup of cocoa. And then it seemed rude not to share it and, well, you’d think that’s not a mistake you’d make twice in your life, but apparently it is. Sorry.”

Ryan had his head in his hands. “There has _got_ to be a way to stop this.”

* * *

**ix.**

“How is this even possible?” said Graham. “How many of you _are_ there?”

The Doctor opened her mouth to answer and then shut it again, closing her eyes as she worked out the sums. “It’s . . . really complicated? And do we count whole other universes?”

“God, I hope not,” said Ryan. “I’m going to be traumatised for life.”

The Doctor leant against the console. “I know I was supposed to try and do better, but this me was from back in the days when I sort of thought I’d blown up my planet, which technically I had, but I didn’t later, and he wanted to repopulate the species.”

“Can you do that with only two of you?”

The Doctor nodded. “Yeah, actually. At least, with Time Lords. Anyway, he was really down about it. Would have been unkind to refuse. And, honestly, I’m not sure the Archbishop of Canterbury appreciated you three bursting in and yelling at him like that. He’s going to have enough trouble with King Henry not very long from now as it is.”

“So, is your planet dead or not?” asked Yasmin. “Doctor, that’s terrible!”

Ryan gave her a wary look. “_You_ blew it up?”

“Wait,” said Graham, “hang on, back up a bit, the Archbishop of Canterbury? King Henry? You’re not saying that was –?” He paused as the rest of it sank in. “You blew up a whole planet?”

“Yes! No! I mean, I thought I did for a while. It’s complicated. I hid it somewhere, and found it, or it found me, and now I think I’ve lost it again. Just like when things go down the back of the sofa. Anyway, Time Lords. Not all they’re cracked up to be even when they are around. All silly hats and self-importance.”

The other three stared at her.

“On the plus side,” she said, after a moment, “at least I didn’t dress up as Marilyn Monroe this time?”

* * *

**x.**

“Let me get this straight,” said Peri, watching her version of the Doctor (wearing his usual patchwork multi-coloured coat) walking up the aisle with a future female version of himself (or herself or whatever) who was dressed as Marilyn Monroe. “You’re telling me that because of some weird hiccup with the TARDIS, you keep landing near other versions of the Doctor and your Doctor keeps marrying them because the TARDIS is emitting some kind of field that makes them drunk so they won’t remember meeting and screw up the timelines?”

Yasmin nodded. “Yeah. Weird, I know.”

“Not any more than usual,” Peri said. “Pretty narcissistic, but like _that’s_ a surprise.”

Ryan and Yasmin exchanged a glance.

“We think it’s kind of more sort of nostalgia with ours,” said Ryan. “But it’s hard to be sure, because, yeah, okay, the TARDIS keeps dumping us with other versions of her and making them sort of drunk, but I’m not sure why they always run off together and try to get married. Maybe that’s some weird TARDIS effect, too.”

“It might not be. I think there’s a name for it,” Yasmin said. “You know, when siblings or parents who’ve been separated from birth fancy each other if they finally meet.”

Ryan stared after the two Doctors. “Yeah. Just two walking rainbows in love. Not weird at all.”

“Yeah,” said Peri. After a moment of silent commiseration between companions, she eventually added, “I suppose we ought to stop them. Do you want to object or shall I?”

“Be our guest,” said Graham. “We’ve crashed enough weddings for one week. I’m going to go and find a nice quiet park bench where I can sit down and eat these sandwiches.”

* * *

**xi.**

“You’re not going to arrest me, are you?” said Bill, as she and Yasmin hid together in a clump of shrubbery while sirens blared in the distance. “Seeing as you’re a copper.”

Yasmin bit back a grin. “What, because you and your Doctor were on the run from the security services at exactly the same time as there’s a big hoo-hah about someone locking the Cheeto in a cupboard?” She paused and then looked at Bill. “You didn’t, did you? _Did_ you?”

“I’m saying nothing until we’re safely back in the TARDIS. It’s only circumstantial evidence. You can’t pin it on us just because we were running. We run a lot. If I wore a fitbit, it’d have exploded by now. Wouldn’t be able to keep up.”

“Good point. Besides, I can’t go around arresting people on this side of the Atlantic and, anyway, I’m off duty.” She grinned. “Off the record, if you really did, you’re my new hero. I could kiss you!”

“Oh, God,” said Bill, sounding strangely faint for someone who might or might not have been at least partly responsible for shoving a world leader into a closet. “I mean, you’re welcome.”

Yasmin grinned. “Later then, maybe. If we ever get the chance.”

Bill peered out through the shrubbery. “Talking of heroes, or sort of, where did both of the Doctors run off to?”

“Probably,” said Yasmin, with a fatalistic sigh, “to the nearest place where someone would be willing to marry them.”

“Seriously? Can’t see the old man eloping.” Bill frowned. “And no offence, I mean she looked great in it, but why was yours dressed as Marilyn Monroe?”

“Don’t ask. We’d better just get after them before it’s too late – again!”

*

“I don’t get drunk, you know. Not usually.”

“Me neither.” The Doctor screwed up her face, as they sat together in the corner of the empty office room they were currently hiding out in. “I’m not sure, though, if I actually _am_ drunk or if I’m just getting really bad _déjà vu_. Something about this seems really familiar. I’m pretty sure I know you, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“Well, I am your husband.”

She stroked his sleeve. “True. Nice jacket.”

“You can have it if you like. What’s mine is yours. S’legal.”

The Doctor nodded. Somehow, despite her fuzzy head, that seemed to make sense. It felt right. “I might just do that, old man.” She leant over and kissed his cheek.

“I like your dress,” he said. “I remember Marilyn. Interesting woman. I got married to her once.”

“Funny. So did I!”

“Don’t be silly. That’s impossible.”

*

About forty minutes later, five worried companions finally found them, and stopped, standing together in a semi-circle, looking down at them.

“Aww,” said Yaz. “They look so cute. Peaceful. Seems almost a shame to wake them.”

Nardole nodded. “Yeah, and I’ve always told him he looked better in a dress, but this time period is weird about that kind of thing.”

“Wait, wait,” said Bill, keeping her voice low as she fished out her phone from her jacket pocket, “don’t anybody do anything until I’ve got a photo!”

Everyone looked at her.

Bill grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll send it to all of you. Promise.”

“When you’ve finished taking selfies,” said Graham, “how about we get out of here before someone has us shot?”

*

The Doctor looked at the TARDIS as she pulled her blue coat back on, the white Marilyn dress tossed over the console.

The TARDIS gave her a custard cream.

“It’s got to stop, you know,” the Doctor said, biting into the biscuit. “Enough is enough.” 

It was worrying, too. Even if the TARDIS put her in the vicinity of one of her former selves, it shouldn’t mean that she felt compelled to marry them, no matter how good-looking she’d been quite a lot of times, not to mention being pretty brilliant herself currently. 

“Hmm,” she mused aloud, wrinkling her nose, “well, I _did_ go through that massive period of self-loathing. I suppose you’ve got to come out the other side eventually. Maybe that’s it. Every action needs its equal and opposite reaction. Either that or I probably need to see someone about my narcissism. Or maybe I really _am_ just that irresistible. I wonder if there’s anything they can give you for that?” 

A light flashed on the console, instantly distracting her from any further introspection. She threw the Marilyn Monroe outfit to one side in order to investigate, and then danced around the controls, flipping a switch and turning a large dial back to OFF. 

“You got the Fast return Switch wired into the Temporal Orbit? I’d have said that was completely impossible. Honestly, why didn’t you just _say_ instead of doubling back along the timeline and letting me get married to myself a dozen times over?”

She looked back at the console and gave a brief grin. “Great parties, though.” She picked up the dress, with the slightest of sighs. She was still in many ways everything that she had been, but it hadn’t been so bad to revisit the past so literally for a change. Just next time she needed to do it without marrying anyone at all. 

It shouldn’t be that hard, should it?


End file.
